The Heartbreaking Ryder Cup

If you’re a golfer, you were no doubt watching the Ryder Cup this weekend. Sunday was heartbreaking. The U.S. team went into the day with such a great lead. So what happened?

Europe had nothing to lose by being aggressive. They could take all the risks they wanted, with almost no downside.

The United States on the other hand, had everything to lose.

Golf is a game of risk and reward, like the stock market. The more risk you take, the more reward is possible, that doesn’t mean you’ll get it. You could get your clock cleaned if you’re too risky, or if something doesn’t go you way.

The United States played a conservative round on Sunday, and no coach that had been on the sidelines that day would have told them to do any differently. Now that they lost, well of course it’s easy to say you should have done things differently.

Sometimes, often times, playing a good steady game is good enough.

Then after the tournament, the stress continued as Francesco Molinari made Tiger putt out. They had already tied the tournament, which meant they were taking the Ryder Cup home with them. But he made Tiger putt out, because they wanted to win. Tiger missed, how embarrassing and heart breaking. Tiger was graceful and conceded the hole to Molinari and did not make him putt out.

We were all on the edge of our chairs Sunday, and our hearts broke for them. But in the end, they played a great game, used good strategy, and were gentlemen. We’re happy to call them our team. And we can’t wait two years to go kick some European %@#!